Lazurus growing herbs is a piece of cake, you just fling the seeds in soil water and then trim when needed. My Mum grows some in a box outside the kitchen window. It's just a quick snip for fresh herbs.

Slow cookers are great here's a nice quick stew type thing.

Chop some onions, carrots and any other veg you fancy and throw in the slow cooker add a piece of lamb, some herbs some chicken stock and white wine if you want some potatoes cut into chunks add salt and pepper. Switch on slow cooker. Leave until you can break the lamb apart with a fork.

Serve with crusty bread.

It's delicious really warming on cold days.

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"A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity, it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path."

I've just started to grow some rocket and some chillis and they're both coming along very nicely...the rocket should be ready pick/snip in a couple weeks but the chillis probably have a fair bit to go yet.

Yep, I think I'm going to get a slow clow cooker...might have to wait and ask Santa for it though!

I've just made 32 cupcakes. 16 vanilla, 16 chocolate. The vanilla ones will have chocolate icing, the chocolate ones vanilla icing. All because my daughter casually mentioned that she wanted a birthday cake to take into school on Friday. One that would feed 30 children.

Posts: 4662
Joined: 6/10/2005 From: A breaking rope bridge in the middle of the jungle

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ORIGINAL: sanchia I was at the local Waitrose and noticed they had sea salt Lindt chocolate and wasabi Lindt chocolate. Has anyone tried these and if so are they any cop?

The sea salt one is tres nice, but then I'm a big fan of salt being used in sweet - salty caramel is amazing.

The wasabi one is...interesting, but not my cup of tea. You might think that it would be similar to chilli chocolate, in that the chilli intensifies the flavour and makes the chocolate (spice) hot. But it doesn't, it just tastes like chocolate with horseradish (to my taste buds, anyway).

Posts: 4662
Joined: 6/10/2005 From: A breaking rope bridge in the middle of the jungle

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ORIGINAL: NinjaShortbread212 It's a combination that I would have stayed away from but it certainly works a treat.

Check the ingredients of pretty much every decent (decent being the key word) pre-prepared (non fruit based) dessert - I guarantee that at least 75% of them will have salt somewhere in the ingredients list. Premium chocolate ice cream isn't premium unless it's got salt in it - in the right quantities it intensifies flavours rather than makes everything taste like salt.

I've done it in the past with shallow frying coated fillet strips - usual flour, egg, breadcrumbs routine (with spices in the breadcrumbs) - It's pretty tricky to get it right (you need a pressure fryer for that) the taste is good, but you don't get the moisture.

Posts: 4662
Joined: 6/10/2005 From: A breaking rope bridge in the middle of the jungle

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ORIGINAL: Skiba So, you're telling me that the secret recipe, that's been part of KFC's marketing for the past x-amount of years, is freely available on this interweb you speak of? Never!

In all seriousness, there is an official lab report floating around where an ex employee managed to smuggle out a bag of the seasoning (it reaches stores ready mixed), which was then tested on. The results were that it was basically something like 95% MSG, 3% very ordinary dry herbs and 2% sugar.

But then, like Coca Cola, the recipe for the KFC seasoning has changed at least three times since the Colonel started doing it - the "11 secret herbs" or whatever recipe was done away with decades ago and those who are old enough to have tried the Colonel's chicken say that what KFC do now bears absolutely no resemblance to the original product.

The REAL "secret" to KFC chicken is how it's cooked - deep pressure fried (which is how the chicken is kept so moist - otherwise, as Wiggum says above, the meat dries out easily) with two coatings of the spice mix.

There are other ways of keeping the chicken moist... The meat in this recipe is more moist than KFC.

The following is enough to coat 8 large chicken portions Plan ahead and buy the MSG from Amazon or eBay or a local Oriental supermarket. It's also known as Accent, Ajino Moto and Super Seasoning and makes a huge difference to the recipe.

This recipe is well worth the effort, it just needs a little advanced planning. Chips are an obvious side but I enjoyed it more with a crispy salad in a homemade vinaigrette.

1. Marinade the chicken in the milk overnight in the fridge. 2. Put the chicken in a saucepan and the same milk. 3. Heat until just starting to boil, reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Leave until chicken is cool enough to handle. 4. Preheat the deep fat fryer to 180c. 5. Grind the larger herbs until fine. Add the rest of the herbs and spices and mix well. 6. Add the herb/spice mix to the flour. 7. Dip the chicken pieces in fresh milk and coat well with the flour mix. Repeat this process once or twice more. 8. Fry the chicken pieces for 3 minutes and dry well on kitchen paper.

I'd love to have a go at making it, but my partner used to work in a chip shop and now can't stand the smell of fryers, so all deep fat frying is strictly banned. I might do a bit of googling and see if there's a decent oven baked version out there!

Posts: 4662
Joined: 6/10/2005 From: A breaking rope bridge in the middle of the jungle

Looks fucking amazing, Laz.

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ORIGINAL: Lazarus munkey I'm going to experiment with a plain/self raising flour mix next time to see if I can get the coating to 'puff up' a bit.

You could also use buttermilk in place of regular milk, and cut out steps 2 and 3 - I understand that the particular cultures in buttermilk help make the chicken about as tender as it is possible to be.